Wine 200

We bartered for a class each. I would teach her beginning herbalism and she would teach me beginning wine. She reminded me of my ballet teacher in college or my sixth grade teacher. She kept snapping at me. She says, “What do you smell?” Then just as quickly, “YOU ARE TAKING TOO LONG!” “Uh,” I said eloquently, “I smell…red.”

I took a set of wine classes from a teacher that taught for a rather big wine school and now works for a winery in Napa. Much better. Among giggly, well travelled, interested people, I learned more, and more about how I learn. We were to smell upwards of forty different wine glasses filled with everything from dirt to ammonia, from lemon to grass and memorize scents. Smelling the wine is a way of tasting it and a lot can be determined by the sniff. One can tell if oxygen got in (vinegar). How the wine maker prepared it. Whether he chose Sur Lis (placed on yeast to sit and create a creamy taste), more tannins (that pucker taste) means longer with the skins, and what kind of oak was used. Whether it grew in limestone or in a rural area.

In a comfortable atmosphere I breathed in deeply from the cup of wine and closed my eyes. I could smell cinnamon, and figs, currents, and sunshine….touch of vanilla. So, I smell sunny days and atmospheres, France, and a later harvest. It is not right or wrong. I am not going to be a sommelier for a living. I can smell Autumn in Tuscany along with fruits and spices and Slovenian oak and not get scoffed at. But it so increases my enjoyment of the wine, isn’t that what wine is for?

Choosing a wine for food can be daunting. But it is simple. Think of common tastes.

A creamy sauce might want cream from the oak of Chardonnay balanced with its tropical fruit to cut the richness.

However Chardonnay will make a salad taste metallic, better to drink a crisp Pinot Grigio to bring out the freshness.

One wouldn’t want to mix a bold, knock your socks off, Tempranillo with say….a light broth because you would lose the taste of the broth! Better to mix it with a flavorful marinara sauce or barbecue.

On the same note, one wouldn’t want to drink a Moscato, in all its sweet glory, with a big bowl of stew because you would lose the wine. It would taste like sweet water.

So choosing wines that are the same “strength” as your dish helps balance the flavors.

Those that prefer red wine but are drinking a “white” dish could opt for a Pinot Noir. It is more subtle than Cabs and has lovely earth and cherry flavors that work well with nearly everything including spicy foods.

Ideas:

Oyster mushrooms with butter and parmesan over linguine and Chardonnay

I am the writer of two blogs, Farmgirlschool.org and Medicinewolf.net. Farmgirl school is my long time blog about all things homesteading and simple living. Medicine Wolf is my blog that started out as a city homestead blog and is now a spell wielding, enchanting, witchy bit of reading for your day. I sincerely hope you enjoy both. My husband and I live in a 93 year old adobe farmhouse in Pueblo, Colorado with several cats (most black) and own White Wolf Medicine. All of my books can be found on Amazon under Katie Lynn Sanders. Thanks for reading, y'all!